Configuring Sage for use with Tradebox One

Posted by Siobhan Bales on January 29, 2018

Using Sage is no longer mandatory with Tradebox One; unlike Finance Manager, Tradebox One can run as a standalone order management system. If you do wish to integrate Sage Accounts (UK version only) with Tradebox One it’s important that you carry out the following configuration in Sage.

1. 3rd Party Integration

Tradebox One integrates with Sage Accounts using the Sage Data Objects (SDO) tools. To allow Tradebox One to speak with Sage the 3rd Party Integration needs to be activated. Click here for our guide and the activation keys you should use.

2. Create Two New Users in Sage exclusively for Tradebox One

Unlike Finance Manager, Tradebox One requires two exclusive users set up in Sage. To enable the new functions, we have been prescriptive and require the following user names to be set up in Sage with full access:

TBUSER
TBSERVICE
To create new users in Sage you will need to be logged into Sage with the Manager logon and then choose Settings > Access Rights.

3. Foreign Currencies in Sage (optional)

If you are selling in foreign currencies you need to decide whether you wish to account for these sales in their native currency in Sage. If you decide to do this you will need to enable the Foreign Trader module in Sage. You may need to purchase this as an additional module from Sage if you are not using Sage 50 Professional. If you run Sage purely in GBP, Tradebox One can handle the currency conversion from foreign to Sterling.

4. Create Generic Customer Account(s) in Sage

Each sales channel that will be linked to Sage needs to be allocated a generic Sage customer account. This is still the case if you’re going to be using individual Sage customer accounts for each buyer; the generic account will be used as a ‘fall back’ if e.g. the name of the buyer contains characters that Sage will not permit. Best practice is to keep the default customer names consistent with your sales channels, e.g. create Sage customer EBAY for eBay sales. Don’t worry about filling in much of the customer record in Sage, the A/C ref (account reference), Name and Currency are sufficient as the address details are populated on an order-by-order basis.

If the channel you are connecting to in Tradebox One is in a foreign currency (like Amazon Germany, France or Italy) AND you are going to account for these sales in a foreign currency in Sage, make sure you configure the currency in the customer record > defaults to the appropriate currency.

5. Create Bank Accounts in Sage (optional)

Most Sage users utilise the 1200 bank account to reflect the activity of their actual high street bank. However, you may find it really useful to create notional bank accounts in Sage to reflect the activity of the different payment methods you accept. So if you’re selling on Amazon UK you may find it beneficial to create an AMAZON UK bank in Sage in a GBP currency. All sales can then be paid into this account and fees debited from it. When you receive the money from Amazon into your actual high street bank then this can be reflected in Sage as a Bank Transfer from Amazon bank account to high street bank account; this keeps the activity on your actual bank much cleaner and will make reconciling it easier. If you are accounting in multiple currencies then you will need to create at least one bank account for each currency. And the same logic would apply on a webstore that accept payment by PayPal and by card; one bank in Sage to represent Paypal and another to handle the card transactions.

6. Create Nominal Codes in Sage (optional)

The nominal ledger is the backbone of Sage that allows all transactions to be analysed and reported. You will need to consider which nominal codes to report your sales income, carriage income, channel fees and payment fees against. If you’re unsure which codes to use, check with your accountant. Generally retailers create sales nominal codes to reflect either where the sales have happened (eBay, Amazon, Website etc) or what has been sold (electricals, soft furnishings, furniture etc). The latter can only be done if you set up products in Sage and choose Sage as your stock control method when setting up Tradebox One.

Note – by default, raising product invoices or sales orders in Sage will use the nominal code for each item line as specified in the Sage Product Record. It’s possible to override this within Tradebox’s settings and have all sales through a given channel go to a single nominal code. Once Tradebox is set up and linked to Sage, go to Sales Channel > Accounts > Nominals > Override Product Nominal.

7. Create Products in Sage (optional)

This is an optional step and only needs to be done if you wish to run stock control in Sage. If you want to simply create financial entries without a vat/non-vat mix, skip this step and choose Service Invoices when you configure your accounts link.

If you do want to link the products you sell online to products in Sage then you must create the products in Sage first. Tradebox One acts as middleware linking your online SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) to the Sage Product Code. This is called Product Mapping and is held in Tradebox One so the program understands which Sage products need to be picked onto an invoice or Sales order, which Sage products need to have their stock levels reduced and also which online SKUs to upload adjusted Sage stock levels to.

Each product in Sage also carries a tax code which allows the user to define whether the product is vatable or non-vatable. Set these as applies to a UK sale; Tradebox One will apply additional rules to orders where the shipping address is outside of the UK. For users who are not interested in stock control but do sell a mixture of vatable and non-vatable goods through the same sales channel, we recommend setting up a generic non-stock product in Sage for each tax treatment and mapping many to one.

All invoices/orders created in Sage by Tradebox One are based upon the sales price as sold online and will ignore the sales price held in the Sage product record.

8. Configure Invoice/Sales Order List (optional)

Simply configuring your Sage Invoice/SO List to display useful information will be greatly beneficial. To add new columns to the Invoice/SO List, right click on the column headers. We would recommend choosing the following columns to display:

Customer Order Number (displays the online marketplace order number)
Order Taken By (displays the Sales Channel Name the sale occurred upon)
Currency Code (displays the currency of the sale)
Foreign Amount (displays the foreign value of the sale)